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July 12, 2013

Microsoft kills the enterprise cloudMicrosoft CEO Steve Ballmer may be taking a page from the Apple [AAPL] playbook in repositioning his corporation as a "devices company", but that's just smoke and mirrors to disguise a firm that's lost its soul: its data surveillance deal with the NSA threatens its position in the enterprise. Here's why:

The End of the Great-Man Theory of InnovationA cluster of factors is driving the change. The biggest is that the world’s supply of great talent isn’t equal to demand. Not surprisingly, the push for new ways of tapping talent is coming less from the C-suite than from operations managers, who need reliable access to specialized skills.

Industry faces perception gap with data center, cloudThe perception gap is due to service providers, especially those offering cloud-based services, that are still caught up with the process of marketing key benefits of cloud and data centers such as agility, responsiveness, and flexibility, he pointed out. However, the starting point of cloud services encompassing availability, performance, and offering business resiliency is equally important to enterprises, Barnes noted.

How to make 'mobile first' an enterprise computing realitySeekins, a mobility architect at a financial services firm, defines mobile first as the idea that "users would rather pick up [a] phone or tablet instead of a laptop." But to accommodate that notion, an organization needs to answer several questions around usability, policy, security and, of course, cost. Mobile first and other adoption trends were hot topics in the blogosphere over the past month. Check out what others had to say:

How does a CEO or founder go about improving — and measuring — company culture?Your company culture is only as strong as you make it. It is not just setting down the bylines of your startup, but living out the culture every day in every decision you make, every meeting that you lead and every conversation that you have. If you see happy, committed employees who share your vision and passion, you know you’re doing something right!

Liberty Mutual CIO: An IT roadmap to business value and agilityMojgan Lefebvre, CIO of insurance giant Liberty Mutual's Global Specialty, believes there are five ways to create business value: the right IT roadmap, governance, an agile IT structure, an IT team that understands the business it's in, and a federated IT organization. ... All of these things go to governance -- having the right governance and making sure that you've got the right accountable individuals.

Researchers create optical switch with graphene semiconductor, could boost internet speedsThe carbon atoms that make up graphene are arranged in a repeating pattern of hexagons. Despite being just an atom thick, graphene is incredibly strong, light and flexible. Its conductive properties also make it attractive for use in electronics. The researchers used several layers of graphene in the optical switch because they found it made the conversion time faster than a single layer. Graphene becomes less conductive as it gets thicker, but can still compete with other conductive materials.

It's a mobile-first world and that means mobile BI tooThis can be a big change in approach -- not just for us but also for BI vendors. So, while we are changing our approach by taking a mobile-first or mobile-only approach, let's also revise our thinking about BI. For too long, the focus of BI has been on reporting and visualizations of those reports. I think our BI focus should be on improved decision making. To that end, I start every BI project by asking and answering three questions:

New Snowden revelation shows Skype may be privacy's biggest enemyThe article devotes a great deal of attention to details about Skype's cooperation with Prism. Skype began cooperating with Prism, in February, 2011, before it was bought by Microsoft. In May, 2011, Microsoft signed a deal to buy Skype, and by October of that year, the purchase was complete. After Microsoft bought Skype, the cooperation with Prism increased dramatically.

Microsoft reaffirms new strategy dedicated to devices, services over software“The form and delivery of our value will shift to devices and services versus packaged software,” Ballmer reiterated. To achieve this, Ballmer remarked that Microsoft went back to its core mantra: “To help people in businesses reach their full potential.” Going forward, Ballmer said that the new strategy will be creating a family of devices and services for both businesses and individuals that power people on-the-go for the "activities people really value."

Quote for the day:"If you fell down yesterday, stand up today." -- H.G. Wells